Free Call Of The Witch by Dana Donovan Page B

saved the man’s life. Truth
be told though, Carlos is incredibly strong. His love for Snickers
Bars and greasy foods notwithstanding, he keeps himself remarkably
fit, especially for his age. If he wanted to, he could have killed
Raul Martinez with his bare hands. Shy of shooting Carlos, I could
do nothing to stop him.
    When he finally let go, Martinez slumped to
the ground like a ragdoll. I looked at Carlos. He seemed
bewildered, perhaps surprised at himself for what he had nearly
done. I said to him in a hush, “What was all that about?”
    He shook his head lightly. “I don’t know,
Tony. I wanted to kill the bastard.”
    I looked back at Martinez. He was coming
around, but slowly. “You damn near did,” I said. “Damn near
did.”
    It was obvious after that little incident
that we weren’t going to get any useful information out of Raul
Martinez. So with great reluctance, and no probable cause to haul
him in, we had no other option but to let him go.
    It was seven-thirty when we left Mike’s Pub
and headed out to Danvers to see Dmitry Kovalchuk, Kelly’s dance
instructor and owner of Swan Lake Dance Studio. I offered to drive,
thinking Carlos needed some time to pull himself together after the
episode with Raul Martinez. But he wouldn’t have it. Said that
driving would calm his nerves more than sitting idle in the
passenger seat would. I asked if he wanted to talk about it. He
said no. A few miles later, he broke a stretch of silence and said,
“Jose.”
    I had been daydreaming out the window,
thinking about Karina Martinez and something she said. When asked
about Kelly’s manner of dress, she told us that Lionel Brewbaker
was strict, but that Mrs. Brewbaker liked to spoil Kelly, let her
wear whatever she wanted to wear on weekends. How would she know
that, I thought, if she didn’t work for the Brewbakers on
weekends?
    Carlos came back, “Did you hear me?”
    I turned to him. “What?”
    “ I said Jose.”
    “ Jose who?”
    “ My brother.”
    “ I didn’t know you had a
brother.”
    “ Well I don’t now. He’s
dead.”
    “ Oh. I’m
sorry.”
    “ Don’t be. I’m
not.”
    “ Okay, then why bring him
up?”
    “ You asked me if I wanted
to talk about it.”
    “ I asked you if you wanted
to talk about your dead brother, Jose?”
    “ No! You asked me if I
wanted to talk about what happened back there. At Mike’s
Pub.”
    “ Oh, that. Sure. All
right, so what’s Jose got to do with it.”
    “ Raul Martinez reminds me
of him.”
    “ What? He looks like your
brother?”
    “ Not so much, but he’s
just like him––like he was.”
    “ Oh?”
    “ My father died when I was
just a boy. Jose was supposed to look after my mother and me. He
made that promise to my father on his deathbed. But he was just
like Raul. He stole whatever money my mother made and spent it on
women, booze and gambling. I can’t tell you how many nights we went
to bed hungry because of him. When I turned thirteen, I went to
work in the sugar fields. I earned two pesos a day, not bad seeing
that back then a peso was worth one American dollar. Even with the
foreman skimming fifty centavos off the top it was pretty good pay
for a kid. I told my mother I was saving up so that one day we
could both move to the United States.”
    “ Is that how you got
here?” I asked.
    “ No. My mother never made
it. After two years of working in the sugar fields, I had saved up
over four-hundred dollars. By then, revolution was in the air. I
told my mother we needed to leave before Castro reached
Havana.”
    Carlos shook his head. I could see his eyes
were on the road, but his mind was thousands of miles and decades
away.
    “ My mother didn’t want to
go without Jose,” he continued. “She told him about our plans and
about my money. Naturally, Jose couldn’t resist. He took the money.
My mother tried to stop him. He knocked her down; split her head
open on a wrought iron table. Then he just left her there. I came
home and found